A slow-paced, detailed study of a day in the life of salon owner Ning. Thammavongsa has created a detailed and completely character in Ning and getting to know her was a pleasure. The other women working in the salon all have their own problems to contend with outside of the salon yet manage to entertain themselves and create a sense od camaraderie through their discussions about the customers.

I enjoyed a glimpse into the life of these women but I wanted to know more and the pace was a little too slow for me.

A poignant and insightful character study, and a gentle exploration of the immigrant experience. Full of warmth, humour, and perceptive observations of human behaviour and identity, while also exploring isolation and otherness.

Ning has several roles: she is boss and mentor in her small nail bar, she is an ex-boxer, she is an immigrant, she is a friend, she is part of a community, and she is alone. These roles overlap and interact as the story is told over the period of a single day in her nail bar.

It is quiet and slow-paced, but powerful and reflective.

There is a theme of segregation and separation. Ning requires that all of the women working in the nail bar wear black, have their hair cut in the same style, and have “Susan” on their name badges. So they become invisible and interchangeable to their customers. And while they speak English to their customers, they talk between themselves in their own language - often in front of, and about, those same customers. They are all seasoned observers of people’s wants and needs, as a variety of people come and go throughout the day. But they stand apart from them.

And Ning separates herself from the women working for her in the nail bar. She is an ex-boxer and it’s unclear why she left boxing, but her ex-coach has left a powerful legacy on how she relates to other people - showing no vulnerability that could be taken advantage of. Even so, the relationships amongst the women are supportive and have moments of tenderness. And while Ning stands alone, she also craves a closeness that she won’t allow herself, and denies that she needs.

Is the whole book a a metaphor for the immigrant experience? With the “Susans”, there is sense of segregation, but with a common bond; with Ning, her prior life as a boxer leaves her with a cultural legacy that has no context in the world she now inhabits.

Or perhaps it’s just a story about a group of women who work in a nail bar.

Thank you #NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the free review copy of #PickaColour without obligation. All opinions are my own.

I did enjoy the writing style of this book and our main character Ning felt very fleshed out which I feel is rare for a book this short. I loved the cover and the concept, I just wish the ending made more sense as I felt it fell short in that respect.

Pick a Colour is a quiet, slow-paced, hyper-focused novel. We focus on Ning, a retired boxer turned nail salon owner, and her employees. Then there is Susan, the customers' favourite nail technician. Never mind that the customers never actually notice that all the employees have a 'Susan' name-tag pinned to their front, Susan is by far the employee of the month.

The critiques are well done, and the narrow focus of the shop and its' employees never feels suffocating. Rather, it feels quite distant, like the author is having every character keep the reader at arms length. This kept me from truly feeling immersed in the story. I also, admittedly, have never actually been in a nail salon, so maybe that added to my inability to get swept up in the lives of the characters.

While this didn't end up working for me, I am the outlier here and would recommend for fans of short, slow-paced, and character-focused stories.

This is a short read at under 200 pages, but it lingers. This story follows a day in the life of a nail salon owner, but it’s about so much more than that.

Thammavongsa cleverly plays into the familiar stereotypes, the quiet suspicion that the staff are talking about you, the small talk, the way the workers are seen as interchangeable. They’re all called 'Susan', expected to look the same and act the same, because that’s more comfortable for the customer.

But beneath the surface is a sharp, layered exploration of identity, invisibility, and what it means to be overlooked while being in plain sight (mentioned as a missing finger quite a lot!).

Funny, uncomfortable, and quietly powerful — this book lets you in on the joke, and then makes you question why you ever laughed.

💅🏻 Pick a Colour 💅🏻

Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa
Publishing Date: 25th September

Thank you @netgalley and @bloomsburypublishing for the e-ARC!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

📝 - Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer’s day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze, listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound complexity. As the day’s work grinds on, the friction between Ning’s two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.

💭 - This story is narrated almost as a stream of consciousness, which is a style I tend to enjoy (though I know it’s not for everyone). I think this style really helps me get into the mind of the characters and see the author’s vision much more clearly, and I definitely felt that here. I also liked that it was told over a single day, but not an abnormal one, just a day with customers coming in and out while Ning reflects and chats to the other employees of the salon. It was a really quick read for me as it’s only around 200 pages, and extremely easy to get through in just a couple of sittings, but I think it still gets its message across well.

#pickacolour #souvankhamthammavongsa #netgalley #advancereaderscopy #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookreview #bookreviewer

Ning is an an ex-boxer. Now she owns a nail salon called Susan's. All her employees are immigrants. presumably from the same unnamed country as Ning herself. They dress identically and wear name badges with the same name: Susan. "So many girls come and go. I don't want to bother getting new name tags each time. Besides, you know, it's never difficult to pronounce a name like Susan."

Pick A Colour takes place in one day at the salon and gives a glimpse into Ning's life through her interactions with her staff and customers, and occasional reminiscences about her boxing career.

This was a quick read, which I finished in an afternoon. It's atmospheric and has plenty of social commentary, along with interesting characters. An enjoyable read that left me feeling a little melancholy.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC of this one!

I really enjoyed How to Pronounce Knife last year, and was happy to see a new book from Thammavongsa. This is a novel (novella?) focusing on a nail salon in the US run by Ning, an ex-boxer. She and her staff are immigrants from an unspecified country and they all wear name badges declaring their names as 'Susan'. I thought this was a clever little detail, as none of the white customers who come in ever pick up on it. They just view them as Asian workers, there to make their nails look pretty for cheap. Some of the customers do chat to them about their own lives, but they treat them almost like a sounding board.

Ning and her employees regularly talk shit about their customers in their own language, which I found hilarious. Literally who wouldn't do that if you were in a room full of white people who didn't respect you but also didn't speak your language? Good for you, girls.

It's a quiet book, all unfolding over one day in the salon, but through that one day we get such a feel for the scope of these women's lives. The neverending grind of an immigrant worker, the ever-looming threat of racism and racist attacks, the dissonance between a past life in your home country to the only work you can get in America. I absolutely loved the idea of Ning as a boxer, people's previous lives are fascinating and not explored enough.

I'd have just liked it to be a bit longer!

This novel is set in a beauty salon - not exactly sure where, US perhaps, where you can get your nails done for 10 dollars. The girls working in the salon all seem to be from same area, as they speak the same language which is different language to customers.
The owner is also an ex-boxer. So as various customers come in, we get commentary on how the staff in the salon laugh at the customers. I didn’t get it. I did not understand the point of the boxing story. The owner is missing a finger, and we never find out why. I disliked how disrespectful the staff were of customers, and just thought of them as “receipts”.
I like the idea of the book and it reminded me of a similar story I read and enjoyed where the main character was a chiropodist (Liberty Terrace by Madeline D’Arcy), but this book isn’t a patch on that.

In Pick a colour, Souvankham Thammavongsa, deftly shows an immigrant’s need to protect themselves with her ability to be astutely observant and to know where danger is coming from.

As just another Susan in a sea of Susan's in her nail salon, uniformed in all black with the same short black hair, Ning is lonely, nostalgic and always trying to rewrite who she is to her clients, translating a more palatable persona for them while just wanting to be seen. She’s an empty vessel, “like something a child draws up to colour in late.r” A vehicle for her customers’ sadness so she doesn’t have to feel her own.

Told in just one day and absolutely riveting (I read the whole thing in one sitting), beautifully fleshed out characters and filled with sorrow. Highly recommend.

This was a short, sweet and sad tale, but in no way is it electrifying. That said, it’s worth a read to put yourself in someone else's shoes and "live a day in their life".

Ning, a former boxer, runs a nail salon where all the staff are all known as "Susan" to customers. Over the course of a day in this short novel, we get to know Ning and the other Susans a little better - little being the operative word.

I keep seeing that this book is "electrifying" but this wasn't my experience. It's a claustrophobic set up, just one location with the same cast of people. We get to know Ning a little better and, through her, the cast of Susans, their clientele and people from Ning's past.

Ning seems lonely, like she wants to open up but can't. This might be because of something that happened while boxing, but this is never explained and we never know why she gave up boxing to work in nail salons. Ning seems to love Mai in a way, but this is not explored and we don't know whether this is platonic or otherwise.

The ending, with Ning's previous boss, Rachael, visiting from a rival salon for the ten-dollar special is unexpected. There is a tender moments but again this is not really explained. And we don't know why Ning left Rachael in the first place so we can't infer anything.

This was a short, sweet and sad tale, but in no way is it electrifying.

This is such a charming slice of life novella and takes places over the course of a single day in a nail salon. I was utterly engrossed in the lives of Ning and the other “Susans” and - rather aptly - read it in a single day.

I loved the stream of consciousness prose and learning about boxer-turned-salon-owner Ning’s life through her interactions with her colleagues and customers.

It’s light on plot but full of heart and touches on a number of heavy subjects including racism, immigration, loneliness, and the facelessness of those working in the service industry.

Thank you to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the eARC.

Ning is a retired boxer turned nail technician, owning a nail salon and gossiping with her fellow “Susans” —the name which is given on every name tag for those who work there. Pick a Colour looks at a single day in the nail salon, reflecting on love, friendship, prejudice and the choices we make that change life’s path.

I love books that combine the minutiae of everyday life with searing social commentary, and this is a brilliant example of that, with captivating characters you could follow anywhere. I was utterly obsessed with the nail salon, its customers, and the rich inner lives of the “Susans” working at the salon, and thoroughly enjoyed finding out more about each of them.

It’s funny and emotional, exploring loneliness, community, and immigrant experiences, with an immersive setting that comes to life through vibrant and beautiful prose. There was a lot of fantastic commentary around expectations of those working in the service industry, alongside reflections on the strong bonds that can form through shared experiences, which I’m sure many will relate to. Despite the short length, I got so much from this one, and will definitely be rereading it at some point.

Absolutely loved this book! Thank you to Bloomsbury for the NetGalley arc 😊

I really enjoyed this book, it gives you a small glimpse into a nail salon and what lives the nail technicians could be living. It’s a quick and easy read, the writing style flows and is read more by this author.

Elegant, thought-provoking, and beautifully crafted 🎨✨. Pick a Colour is a powerful collection that explores identity, belonging, and human connection with lyrical precision. Souvankham Thammavongsa’s writing is understated yet deeply moving, offering quiet reflections that linger. I adored the poetic style and sharp observations. Perfect for fans of short fiction that resonates.

I don't like to give negative feedback and I think this book just wasn't to my taste. The cover and title suggested to me that it would be a bit more of a dynamic/vibrant read, and I just found it far too slow a read. I didn't click with any of the characters either, it felt like way too long was spent just hearing about the day to day in a nail salon. I've worked in a salon in the past so it was a bit too close to home maybe!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this ARC.
This is such an odd little novella.

I enjoyed the insight into the day to day running of the nail shop and all the details of what went through the main charactersmind and they way they anticipated the customers needs and kept their 'girls' busy.
It just felt like it was missing something, I wanted more from the characters, but ultimately an enjoyable read.

The first novel by a Laotian Canadian (born in a Thai refugee camp) poet and Giller Prize (2020 – with “How To Pronounce Knife”) winning short story writer.

It is set over one working day (and I think best read the same way – for me on the two legs of a commute) in “Susan’s” a nail salon (in we assume Canada) and narrated by the owner of the salon (Ning) who like the rest of her workforce (all immigrants from her home country – we assume Laos) wear badges calling themselves “Susan” and dress identically with t-shirt/pants which match their uniformly cut black hair.

Ning we quickly realise (and perhaps note also the Rita Bullwinkle blurb as being linked) is a retired boxer – and often reflects to herself on her boxing past (and the advices of her trainer) and her first post boxing job in a nail salon from which she was then sacked when the owner Rachel felt she was getting too old.

Ning and the other workers (on that day including a new girl Noi, her regular worker Mai, and Annie who is covering for another worker Nok who has not shown up for several days) operate a cheap and efficient operation – a mix of regular customers (notably a semi-famous baseball pitcher), one-off bookings (here a bridal party) and walk-ins – both listening to their customers life stories, while also gossiping and speculating about them, sometimes outrageously, in their native language.

The simplicity of the set up is matched by that of the language (present tense, short sentences) but the novel is full of pathos: an incident when Ning treats a homeless man, an accident involving a pigeon, an encounter with the father of a girl she gives shelter after a blown tire whose silent dismissal of her shows us the racism Ning faces, Ning’s ambiguity about joining her workers for lunch – her need to maintain professional distance clashing with her personal need for connection, her reflections on what she really knows of those she works with daily and they of her – and so on.

And all of this – as well as the glimpses into the life stories of the customers – does make for an affecting story but one I felt would have worked better as the anchor novella of a short story collection – a closing scene involving Rachel not for me sufficient to give the story this enough weight to fully function as a standalone.

I enjoyed this slice of life novella about a nail salon. The main character used to be a boxer and I found it interesting the change up. I liked the writing style and was intrigued by the plot and characters and customers. I gave this 3 stars because it wasn’t life changing, however, it was a enjoyable slice of life with more to offer and a quick read. A nice read if you are wanting a palette cleanser.